“And that didn’t distress you?” she asked on a rising note of concern.

“I said my sense of vocation had vanished, not my faith,” said Madero. “I thought it was God’s will that I should be a priest, then I realized it was His will that I should do something else. Why should that trouble me?”

“But you have been distressed, I understand, physically if not mentally?”

Edie Appledore’s knowledge of his background had prepared him for this.

He said, “I had a climbing accident. I damaged my skull, my left leg and my spine. Happily after many months’ convalescence I am completely recovered.”

His left knee gave him an admonitory twinge and, feeling Sister Angelica’s keen eye upon him, he added, “Except for my knee, which will take a little longer.”

The nun smiled and said, “So you’re untroubled by doubts, Mr. Madero?”

“Completely,” he said. “Though occasionally by certainties.”

She let out a snort of amusement and nodded again, this time at Woollass, who said, “Thank you, Mr. Madero. If you’d give us a few moments…? Perhaps you might care to see some more of the house? My daughter would be pleased to give you a short tour.”

“That would be delightful,” said Madero.

He stood up and followed Frek out of the room.

“So,” he said. “You pour the coffee but you don’t actually get a vote.”

She said, “What makes you think I haven’t voted already, Mr. Madero?”

His name in her mouth was like being caressed by her tongue…

He said hastily, “It would be, let me see, Henry the Eighth on the throne when the Hall was built?”

“That’s right,” she said with a faint knowing smile as if well aware of the subject he was changing. “But I’m afraid that unlike most houses of such antiquity, no one of royal blood or indeed of any particular distinction has slept here.”

“Not even Father Simeon,” he said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the home of close relatives of acknowledged Catholic sympathies must have seemed very attractive in times of need.”

“By the same token, when the hunt was up for him, it must have been one of the places most likely to be searched.”

“No doubt a hiding place had been prepared. Is there a priest-hole?”

She said, “If there is, who better than an expert like yourself to discover it?”

She spoke seriously, but he thought he could detect mischief in her eyes.

She led him back into the main hall. By now his eyes had adjusted to the dim light and he was able to take in more detail.

“This is the original Tudor hall, somewhat modified,” said Frek. “Purists would probably say it’s been ruined, but my ancestors were rather selfishly more concerned with their own convenience than Heritage. When something wore out, they replaced it.”

“Like the staircase,” said Madero.

At the far end of the hall, an ornate staircase of a design he didn’t recognize but which certainly wasn’t Tudor curved up to the first-floor landing.

“You noticed. Just as well, or I might have started thinking you were a fake, Mr. Madero. Yes, originally there was a stone spiral, great for sword fights but a little perilous for the old or infirm. Some eighteenth-century Woollass doing the Grand Tour spotted this one in France and brought it back with him. If you’re interested you can see the old stone treads out in the garden. They were used in the construction of a summer house. Waste not, want not, is the Woollass motto.”

“I thought it was our dog’s a crook.”

“Hardly in the house two minutes and already quoting our jokes,” interrupted a high, rather nasal voice. “The mark of a true researcher or an investigative journalist. Good morning, my dear.”

A tall, slender man was coming down the staircase. Clad in a long silk dressing gown of cardinal red, he might indeed have been an old Prince of the Church, come to give audience. He certainly had the features for it – wide brow, deep-set eyes, high cheeks, aquiline nose, and a mane of white hair so fine it gave the impression of an aureole.

“Good morning, Granpa,” said Frek, standing on tiptoe to kiss his inclined cheek as he paused on the penultimate step. “How are you today?”

Madero could see a resemblance here, much more than he could detect between either of them and Gerald Woollass. Perhaps the short plump genes and the long slender ones leapfrogged each other down the generations.

“I am well, surprisingly so, for which I give due thanks. And you I take it are Mr. Madero. I’m Dunstan Woollass,” said the old man, offering his hand which had a large ruby ring on the index finger. “Welcome to Illthwaite Hall.”

Resisting the Spanish half of his blood which tempted him to kiss the ring, Madero shook hands. Dunstan Woollass didn’t release his hand but kept a hold of it as he completed his descent, and now Madero had to resist his more frivolous English blood which tempted him to break into “Hello, Dolly!”

To restore the balance of sobriety he said, “I believe you are a historian yourself, Mr. Woollass. My supervisor, Max Coldstream, edits Catholic History and he recalled with pleasure several excellent articles you had submitted to the journal.”

What Max had said was, “Woollass… There was a Dunstan Woollass. Don’t know if he’s still alive, but he was a man of some influence in northern Church circles. In fact, I’m pretty sure he got one of those decorations the Vatican dishes out from time to time. Used to write a bit in Catholic journals, more a polemicist than a historian, though he did submit the occasional article to CH. Euphuistic in style and rather fanciful in content, I recall. But occasionally there were shafts of light and wit.”

There was light and wit in the old man’s eyes now. The same bright blue-gray eyes as his granddaughter. And the same faintly mocking expression.

“Indeed? I wish I could recall his frequent rejection slips with equal pleasure,” he said. “Yes, I have dabbled a little, but I have never been more than a dilettante. It is a pleasure to welcome a real scholar to Illthwaite. Not that I am dressed to suit the occasion. You must forgive my dishabille. These days I emerge by slow degrees from the pupal state of sleep. I need nourishment to give me the strength to dress, yet I have never been able to master the complex geometry of breakfast in bed which inevitably leaves me sticky with marmalade, itchy with crumbs and scalded by coffee. So I descend to the kitchen where no doubt the divine Pepi is even now pouring my orange juice and creaming my eggs. Ah, speak of angels and they shall materialize before our eyes.”

The woman who’d appeared in a doorway at the left end of the hall was handsome enough but hardly angelic. In her forties with dark brown hair pulled tight in a bun above a wide forehead, big gray-blue eyes and a generous mouth, she wore a nylon housecoat which strained across her large breasts and broad hips.

“Pepi, this is Mr. Madero, the famous scholar. Madero, this is Mistress Collipepper, our invaluable housekeeper, the third of that name to have taken care of us poor feckless Woollasses. We’re terribly hierarchical in Illthwaite.”

The eyes registered Madero without any interest then moved on to the old man.

“Come on, Mr. Dunny, afore you catch your death standing there in the draft,” she commanded.

“Audio, obsequor. Good luck to you, Madero. Incidentally, my grandfather, Anthony Woollass, wrote a short history of the parish. Like me he was very much an amateur – the book was privately printed – but you’ll find a copy in the study bookcase if you care to spare it a glance. À bientôt, or should I say hasta luego?”

He released Madero’s hand and followed the housekeeper through the doorway.

“He is… remarkable,” said Madero. “And I noticed he seems to anticipate the Star Chamber will find in my favor. Does he, like yourself, cast a vote in absentia?”

“You mustn’t probe our secrets before you have clearance, Mr. Madero,” she said. “Now, what next? Are you interested in pargetting?”